This is pretty long, but it's a narritive about how I changed over the course of about 10 months. The lessons that I learned/experienced are in bold.

I'm no PUA. I'm 19, a sophomore in college. I can't go to clubs and bars, I don't have a car, and I still fuck up social situations once in a modestly often while. I'm currently single, I've only had one girlfriend and one fuck buddy. I've only had the sex with one girl.

But hopefully this story will provide some advice/inspiration for those who are new to the ways of Seddit.

When I was a junior in high school, I had my first girlfriend, a freshman two years younger than I. She approached me in class, asked me on dates, asked me to be her boyfriend, etc. In retrospect, I was one of the luckiest beta-males around, because she was quite a looker (think slightly chubbier Alyson Hannigan with a hefty bosom). "Alyson" and I dated for a little over two years, and she eventually broke up with me to get with her best friend. I was halfway through my freshman year of college at the time. We fiddled around with each other sexually, but we never actually had sex with one another for various reasons.

I was heartbroken, and I went through a period of something of an identity crisis for a little while, wondering how I would get back into the dating game. Alyson was certainly the dominant one in the relationship; I had no idea where to start. Most of what I learned about relationships I got from sitcoms, films, and my experience with Alyson.

Lesson 1: Sitcoms and films (especially comedy films) protray an emasculated, impotent male role model most of the time. Hopeless yet lovable doofus falls head-over-heels for a foxy lady and works really hard to win her heart, which he wins in the end. This bears little to no resemblence to relationship dynamics in real life.

I knew that I wanted to have a girlfriend or at least some intimate female companion. It was one of those, once you go intimate, you never want to go back type of deals. You never know how god damn awesome something is until you actually have it. I had (emotional) intimacy, and it felt pretty good. One of my friends at my college dorm suggested that I check out what good ol' Seddit had to offer in terms of advice.

I spent hours reading stuff here and tried a couple of cold approaches in the dining hall and on the bus. Neither worked out very well (turns out girls sitting alone in the dining hall eating crappy food just feel like finishing eating and leaving, who'd-a thunk?) for me. And so, freshman year ended.

Sophomore year began and I was still feeling pretty lonely. I continued to read Seddit, but not approaching much. I wasn't a member of any clubs at school and I was (am) living in the rather small honors student dorms (sausage-fest if I ever experienced one). The freshman girls who joined my circle of friends were all uninterested in me as a potential mate.

Then, more or less on a whim and at the request of a male friend, I signed up for the Ballroom Dance Club.

Lesson 2: Learn how to dance. Seriously, take a class. Check nearby towns for social dancing events. Dancing is fabulous for a number of reasons.

  • You get to touch people. The more you touch people in casual environments, like when dancing, the less weird it will seem in social interactions. Kino away, gents.
  • You learn to lead (assuming you dance in the male role). Leading in dance teaches you to take risks, think on your feet, and most importantly, how to be a leader.
  • Dancing is sexy. Tell me that a tango isn't sexy, I dare you, I double dare you, motherfucker! Bitches love someone who actually knows how to dance, not just grind in a club or flail around like an octopus having a seizure. After a few classes, you'll be able to begin to take apart what you learned and put it together in a new environment or a different context. And you'll understand rhythm.
  • When you start dancing with people and you do it right, you feel good. That's confidence. And beginner dance is easy to do right.

Lesson 3: Find a (exciting) passion. I really love ballroom dance; I could talk about it for obscene amounts of time. People with (exciting) passions are loved and respected. (Note: certain passions have social stigmas. It's fine to be passionate about them; I love Guild Wars 2 and other video games. I suggest, though, trying to find at least one exciting passion, which can range from a musical instrument to rock climbing to painting to whatever. Just something that society values. Society values lots of things, you'll find something.)

I spent some time socially calibrating. I was going through a personality change, trying to change from shy pansy wuss to outgoing alpha male. In the meantime, I was still reading Seddit, starting to attend social events at school, and dancing.

At the end of October, there was a Halloween dance in the basement of my dorm. I donned my 11th Doctor outfit and strutted on down. I felt great dancing with people I didn't know and generally giving off a honey badger vibe. I also discovered that "Hey, do you know how to dance the hustle?" is a pretty good opener for this sort of environment.

One of the girls (HB7) at the dance caught my eye; she was wearing a corset, somewhat steampunk-ish costume, and she looked somewhat like a white Kavya Madhavan. I did the hustle open to her and she was very receptive to dancing. Turns out she did ballet and contra dancing, and was interested in ballroom. We hit off pretty well (dancing is excellent kino, gents!) but she abruptly left with one of her friends. Whatever, kept dancing.

A few days later, I went with my friend to a shitty concert for music majors. Kavya and her friend showed up, and we all left shortly afterwards because shitty concerts for music majors really aren't that enjoyable. One of my friends was having a small party at the dorm, so I brought Kavya and my friends there.

My friends fed some drinks to Kavya and to me and we started to watch Dr. Who, the first Matt Smith episode. I continued kinoing Kavya as she made comments about how she's bisexual and how Karen Gillian has fantastic legs. We made out on the futon (as my friends laughed and told us to get a room). I left to go to the bathroom and as I returned, one of my friends told me that Kavya found me foxy and wanted to have sex with me. So we went to my room and had the sex. My first the sex.

Lesson 4: Take risks. I was a recovering-AFC virgin with a confident girl who has had multiple partners in the past, both male and female. Being bold is sexy. So kino and don't be afraid to go for the kiss. If you screw it up, oh well, plenty of other girls in the world.

She slept over and needed a bit of a recap of what happened the night before; turns out she was more drunk than either of us had thought she was.

Ultimately, since neither of us were interested in being in a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship with one another (ultimately we decided that we weren't exactly each other's type), we decided to be fuck buddies until the end of the semester. Turns out she was into being tied up and enjoyed a small degree of masochism. Needless to say, we had lots of fun.

And now the semester is over. We keep in contact via Steam and intend to be platonic friends in the future.

To be honest, I'm not the best-looking guy. I'm very skinny, average face, no muscle, and pretty short at 5'4".

Lesson 5: But you don't have to be Lieutenant Colonel Stud Manmeat III of the Royale Handsome Brigade. I dress well and I (for the most part) try to carry myself like I'm the biggest guy in the room. If you pretend you're a 10, you carry yourself like you're a 10. And then you become a 10.

Lesson 6: Take action in setting the terms of your relationship. You can do it via hints (kino) or by discussing it with your lady friend.

I told Kavya the next morning that I wasn't looking for a girlfriend, and I later told her that I don't think we would make a good couple and that we should be play it by year and most likely be just friends after the semester is over.

This point is significant because isn't something you should do to be sexy and desirable. This is what you should do to maximize your own happiness. Take some control of the situation. Understand what you want and try to set the parameters so that you can you can be happy. Yes, there should be some discussion of course, but don't become the bitch whose spine breaks to fulfill someone else's wishes at the expense of your own happiness.

That's all I have. Thanks for making this a very fun semester, Seddit. I hope to produce some actual field reports in the future.

tl;dr, read the bold parts, those are the lessons.

Author's note: this is a throwaway/alt. My main screen name has certain ties to me in real life, so for the sake of not having to potentially explain myself to certain individuals...

Edit: formatting